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Verizon sees iPhone sales double in holiday quarter as profit margins shrink

Verizon sees iPhone sales double in holiday quarter as profit margins shrink

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Verizon has announced it sold 4.2 million iPhones this past holiday quarter — more than double what it sold the previous quarter, and besting AT&T's record 2010 holiday iPhone sales.

By Bryan Bishop / @bcbishop

Via 9to5Mac | Source The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg

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iPhone 4S
iPhone 4S

Those who suspected Verizon customers were waiting for the iPhone 4S before pulling the iOS trigger may have been correct: the carrier has announced it sold 4.2 million iPhones in the fourth quarter of 2011. The number more than doubles the units sold in the third quarter of the year, when the iPhone 4 was the only model Verizon had to offer. Even more impressive, it bests the 4.1 million iPhone activations AT&T boasted about for the holiday quarter of 2010 — even though Verizon has only carried Apple's device for less than a year.

It's not all upside, however. Despite the increased sales, Verizon actually saw its profit margins shrink due to the higher carrier subsidies Apple negotiates. Still, we can't imagine the carrier is complaining about the new customers that are signing up for two-year contracts. We won't have a sense of AT&T's holiday sales numbers until its earnings call on January 26th, but with Big Red's LTE rollout continuing at a breakneck pace, and an LTE iPhone rumored for next year, we wouldn't be surprised to see Ma Bell's iPhone sales overtaken sooner rather than later.

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